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Summary: true story!
Review: Cathy Crimmins partner researched medical libraries to provide factual details within the context of this entertaining and cohesive account of a chaotic and painful experience.She shares the story of her husband Alan's injury from a motorboat running over his head and the aftermath of that event. There are elements here contained in many brain injury stories to a greater or lesser degree; insurance companies, jobs, the impact on friends and family and the slow, frustrating process of recovery. How she contends with these larger difficulties as well as the daily problems presented by her husband's disability is a story skillfully presented. She maintains hope and provides support during a time that seems incredible in the telling.
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Summary: A must-read for families affected by brain injury!
Review: Cathy Crimmins performed a remarkable service for TBI survivors and their families by penning this humorous, touching, fact-filled book about the recovery process! As a cerebral aneurysm survivor, I was truly touched by the information she shared with readers, and wish that this book had been published a few years earlier...I think it might have helped my family to understand what I was going through! I highly recommend this to anyone whose life has been touched by brain injury, of any kind! Thank you, Cathy Crimmins!
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Summary: Keep a box of tissues handy!
Review: Cathy Crimmins says that WHERE IS THE MANGO PRINCESS? is the book she never hoped to write. But we should be glad she did! It is a book that is sure to bring tears to anyone's eyes, but tears that alternate from tears of sadness to tears of joy to tears of laughter. It is Oliver Sacks meets Robin Cook! However, Robin Cook never took the Insurance Companies & HMO's to task with the biting humor that Cathy Crimmins does in this book. And Oliver Sacks never described the strengths & frailities, the inner workings of the human mind, and the human psyche, in such a personal way and with such candor & grace as does Cathy Crimmins. Cathy can truly say "Been There, Done That." A short moment in time. A family vacation. Suddenly, a life is in jeopardy, a family is forever changed. Cathy takes us through that harrowing first year AFTER. We see Kelly, 7 years old, suddenly lose her childhood innocence. And we see Alan, a successful 40something lawyer, replace Kelly as Cathy's child. Head Injury is all around us. It is a great hidden "disease" in which the victims are often unaware of their own changes, and the public is unaware - period. This book not only helps raise awareness of this particular tragedy, but it makes us aware that there are so many people out there who are facing tragedies that we see as impossible to cope with, yet somewhere, find the strength. Cathy found the strength. As the spouse of a head injury victim, I could not have written this book. Congratualtions to Cathy for writing the book that had to be written. As a member of the human race, I would not want to have missed reading this book. It should be read by anyone who is in, has been in, or contemplates ever being in, a relationship. It defines Love. As I finsihed this book, I posed this question to myself: Does this book have a happy ending? Well, does it? Decide for yourself.
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Summary: A serious subject told with humor and wit
Review: Cathy Crimmins wrote a remarkable book. She educates us about serious brain injuries while letting us see into her soul. I love her sense of humor - This is a must read.
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Summary: Amazing Crimmins
Review: Everything about this book has been said in prior reviews. I admire Crimmins for her courage and positive outlook. I would like to know how the tale proceeds, how is her husband now, after the first year of rehabilitaion has passed. My then seven-year old daughter suffered brain trauma through disease, equine encephalitis rampant in Mexico when we visited there in 1970. After seizures, a cardiac arrest, a six week coma, and the long road to recovery began. I kept a journal and wrote about the illness and the eventual break-up of our family. This head-injury infected the family like a virus, causing the fabric of our structure to weaken, eventually to break. Later, much later, after having been married to a young man who had also suffered TBI through riding sans helmet on a motorcycle, and having lived a rewarding life, the old scars in my daughter's brain led to a violent seizure, and death. Unexpected and sudden. I read recently of a young woman who suffered TBI and lay in a coma. My impulse was to go to her mother and try to give her hope, from experience. I didn't, simply because I feared the question, "How is your daughter now?" And having to answer, "She died," hardly encouraging, since the death was related to the earlier brain-injury. There are no pat answers in a brain injury. Every case is unique. I could see how different the trauma was in my son-in-law, who was injured (motorcycle accident) when nineteen, and with little more than an average education. He fared less well than Cathy's husband with a higher education. Methods used today are much better than those used even fifteen years ago, and much advanced over those used thirty years ago. Age has something to do with it as well. Stephanie was seven, at an age when the brain could still form new synapses. All these factors come into play making each and every case different. Stephanie's neurologist told me, when he read the memoir I had written of Stephanie, "Mrs. Finell, when I read how Stephanie was treated thirty years ago, I feel neurology was still in the dark ages. Everything we know now we have learned within the last ten to fifteen years." That is why I would hesitate to recommend this book to family members of anyone who has "only yesterday" suffered TBI. The truth might be too frightening. On the other hand, it should be read by every doctor, caregiver, HMO person, and after a certain while has passed, then, by every member of the family. It should be read by co-workers, or co-students of the TBI person. No one understands TBI. Just yesterday I read an article again, where a teenager is lying comatose after having been hit by a car, accompanied by photos of schoolmates with balloons, with smiling get-well faces, innocently believing that after a while the stricken person will awaken from her coma and after a given recovery time, everything will be as it was. The sad news is, and this Crimmins drives home over and over again, that it will never be again as it once was. The old clichee holds: Ignorance is bliss. Optimism and hope carry the day. Some of the doctor's predictions come true, some do not. It would take courage for someone to read the book had a recent TBI occurred to a family member. I am amazed that Cathy Crimmins could write this book while her husband was recovering, I suppose it served to keep her sane and was in a way cathartic. My hat is off to this wonderful writer, this "Amazing Crimmins," never maudlin, always matter of fact, sometimes funny, sometimes sad, but always straight on target. One last word: This book is invaluable for what it teaches us about the brain. And yes, it reads like a novel and therefore will be read. Other books dealing with brain injury written by doctors, offer valuable information but will not be read by the lay reader, and this is a story that HAD to be told to Everyman.
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Summary: Riveting and well-written
Review: Great story, easily read and very interesting.
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Summary: Mango Princess comes home
Review: Having never read a book that talked about a personal experience with Traumatic Brain Injury, I found myself unable to put the book down. My god-daughter recently sustained a head injury from being thrown from an All Terraine Vehicle (ATV) and I found so much of Cathy Crimmins' story right on the mark. This book can be a difficult book to read because of the deeply emotional subject, but is a touching memoir told with a great deal of humor, and most of all... honesty. Reading this book will touch anyone who has ever known someone who has sustained a TBI. It's also a book that should be shared after reading it. I congratulate the author for sharing her story; one that shares the heartache and explores the mystery of dealing with a loved one who survives a serious head injury. It's a world that I hope my family is spared from ever knowing firsthand. I guess we never know how we will respond to a life changing event, and Cathy Crimmins shows the human side - the ups and downs with a rare openess. This is not anything like the Harrison Ford movie, Regarding Henry, where he wakes up a sweet guy afer a serious accident. This is what really happens! This is a must read.
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Summary: Poignant, Riveting, Funny
Review: In a memoir that reads like a novel, Cathy Crimmins documents a devastating accident and its aftermath with clarity, grace and wit. Read this book and marvel at the ability of a gutsy woman to rise above a bizarre calamity. Brava!
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Summary: Riviting and Compelling!!
Review: In her no holds barred book, Where Is The Mango Princess? Cathy Crimmins takes the reader on a candid journey of courage, determination and humor, as she struggles to rebuild her life following a senseless accident which leaves her husband Alan with severe traumatic brain injury. In the weeks and months after the accident, Cathy shares the challenges she and her family face as Alan survives coma, completes rehab,and re-enters the workforce. Cathy's take charge and 'take no prisoners' attitude as she battles her HMO with a razor sharp wit, is indicative of the conversations many of us have in our heads, but would never dare verbalize. As a traumatic brain injury survivor, I found her story touching, bold and brilliantly executed.
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Summary: Julianna mango princess
Review: Julianna Margulies will be in a new movie Where is the Mango Princess son on TNT! WATCH IT!
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